


the sound of these flames

by tkreyesevandiaz



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxious Evan "Buck" Buckley, Eddie Diaz Takes Care of Evan "Buck" Buckley, Established Relationship, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Death, Might get slightly dark?, Mild Language, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Worried Eddie Diaz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28087095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tkreyesevandiaz/pseuds/tkreyesevandiaz
Summary: Buck can't hear anything over the sound of these flames.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Comments: 35
Kudos: 234





	the sound of these flames

**Author's Note:**

> Nova said hurt!Buck, and my life said "anxious bad days always" so here we are xD
> 
> Warnings: mentions of death; vague descriptions; mild language; mentions of dry heaving/puking; anxiety

She was right there.

She was just in Buck’s arms, him carrying her towards the exit of the building they were trapped in, when the floor collapsed.

Buck, from years of anticipating the floor falling out from under him, from all his experience of falling a story or two because of the fire eating through the building’s structure, catches himself before he can topple forward in the gap.

The only thing he hadn’t anticipated was losing his grip on the woman he was supposed to be saving.

An involuntary scream rips from his throat as he stumbles forward blindly, searching the smoke for any sign of where she could have gone. In his head, he knows that there’s no way she, already weakened from smoke inhalation, not properly geared the way he is, could’ve survived that — not with the fire flaring the way it is.

Still, it doesn’t stop him from ignoring the faint call of Bobby’s voice over the radio, just as he ransacks the same floor he’d just made his way out of, looking for any signs of life, any hope that maybe she didn't fall a few stories away.

He’s just about to lower himself through the floor when he feels two arms wrap around him, bodily dragging him away. And Buck thrashes, knowing he’s being irrational for the world crumbling around them, but can only think of the poor woman he’s just let go of. 

He already knows who this is, already knows who’s stupid enough to come back to find him, but that doesn’t stop him from struggling away at all, both of their equipment severely weighing them down, making his movements clumsy.

He can’t hear a single thing over the roar of the flames, and in some ways, that’s probably a blessing. It selfishly means that Buck didn’t have to hear the woman scream when she fell through the floor, didn’t have to hear flames licking at her skin, didn’t have to hear the agony that could make this situation worse than it already is. But he still has to live with the fact that somewhere in this loud hell, a woman he couldn't save is dead...or even worse, stuck in a painful position.

This thought makes him go limp, his vision blurring with more than just the haze surrounding them. He imagines Eddie’s trying to say something to him, but this isn’t a movie, and he can’t  _ hear  _ things in burning buildings. 

The first blast of the cool air over whatever parts of his skin are exposed damn near sets Buck’s head spinning, and he shoves Eddie away, doubling over with the force of his gasps. He claws at the mask but can’t get it  _ off,  _ his fingers aren’t  _ working— _

Familiar fingers make quick work of the apparatus and suddenly Buck can breathe, which also means he can dry heave on the ground. He can feel his stomach roil, bile crawling up his throat, just waiting for his dinner to make an appearance.

The fact that it never comes only makes him feel worse, the burn in his chest spreading like the fire behind him, licking at his rib cage, incinerating his diaphragm and making him feel like he’ll never take a full breath ever again. His ears feel too open, the rush of air and people overwhelming him, pressing him further into the ground.

The only thing he can think of is the woman he’s just left for dead in the building crumbling behind him. He’s not thinking of anything else when Eddie drags him behind a truck and removes his turnout coat, pressing a bottle of water against his lips. The physical shield keeps him away from some of the chaos that threatens to fizzle over his skin in the worst way possible.

“I let go of her,” Buck whispers, not looking into his fiancé’s eyes. He doesn’t want to see the disappointment, doesn’t want to see any anger. Eddie may have his back all the time, but that doesn’t mean he supports everything Buck does. 

He didn’t even  _ see  _ her fall, he doesn’t have anything to pay homage to her memory. He has one measly name, and one indication that she was a PhD student, for all the questions Buck had asked her to keep her awake.

Turning away from Eddie, Buck stares at the flames crawling further up the building, watches units pull up to the curb to douse what they can with the hose. He should probably be helping over there, but one warning grip of Eddie’s hand around his arm is enough to stop him from getting up.

“You didn’t,” Eddie replies simply, as if it were total fact, as if he’d been standing right there. As if no one’s ever died on Buck’s watch before. As if Buck could never do any wrong.

“I did.” This time, he adds a finality to his tone, a sharpness that he knows Eddie notices, one that he knows will grate across his fiancé’s nerves. Eddie doesn’t say anything else, just continues smoothing circles into Buck’s too-hot skin with his cool thumb, watching him drain the rest of the water.

Buck sits there staring at the ground until he hears Bobby’s voice again. He hasn’t met Eddie’s gaze yet, and he can’t meet Bobby’s either, knowing he’s about to get his ass chewed out for disobeying direct orders. 

But when Bobby speaks, it’s only to direct Eddie to take him home. At this, Buck looks confusedly at his captain, slightly placated by the understanding in his expression. Bobby understands what this is like — he knows the instinct to save people runs deep, whether that be family or someone he knows nothing about. Somehow, that sympathetic look gives him a minute amount of courage to turn and look at Eddie’s face.

Eddie’s not mad either — his expression is more a mix of worry and fear than anything else, and he hasn’t stopped touching Buck since he dragged him out. 

Did that woman have someone like Eddie in her life, too? Did she have someone who’d run back into a burning building with no regard for anything else? Did she have someone who loved her as unconditionally as Eddie loves him?

_ Tamara.  _

Tamara’s the woman’s name. Buck would do well to remember that.

As they load up the truck and make their way back to the station, Buck keeps his headpiece precariously balanced in his lap in a silent signal that he doesn’t want to talk to anyone. He thinks about Tamara’s name again.

Out of all the people they save from fires, they never get a name for about 70% of them. Buck thinks that in some ways, as much as he prefers getting to know people, that it’s a blessing in disguise.

Everything’s easier when he can detach himself from a situation, when there isn't an identity to associate with a case.

Death is part and parcel of working emergency services. Buck’s known this from the second he stepped foot into the fire academy, as a cocky 25-year-old who thought he was too good for his own shoes. He probably knew it the second he picked up the recruitment flyer at the local bookstore.

Devon, the very first person Buck ever lost on call, had done a number on him. As much as his team had rallied around him to give him advice on how to pick it up and move on, Buck secretly has never been able to detach himself from anything, has never been able to remove himself from any of the people they’ve lost.

Now, at thirty, with five years under his belt at the LAFD, Buck thinks that it’s still just as hard as it was straddling that rollercoaster, with a hand outstretched all to no avail.

Tamara’s name goes on a mental list of the names Buck’s retained in his head, her tally goes in the memory supply of people they’ve lost — named or not.

Vaguely, there’s a sense of guilt for it. All these people they were meant to save, reduced to nothing but tallies in his head and empty seats at their family’s dining table. He still goes over the names in his head, can still see each John Doe’s face flash across his mind at inopportune times. The thought settles some of the guilt of having to move on from letting people die, because it means that Buck hasn’t desensitized himself to the horrors of this job.

He never wants to — no matter how much the anxiety fills him, no matter how much dread the idea of coming out with people dead on arrival, or people unrecognizable due to their injuries, fills him with. Desensitizing himself to that would alienate him from his humanity, and that's not something Buck has every been able to do.

“Buck,” Eddie’s gentle voice pulls him out of his thoughts. Buck turns his head to look at him, only to find them sitting alone in the cab of the truck, already parked in the engine bay.

“Sorry, just...thinking.” Buck manages a forced smile that probably looks more like a grimace than anything else. 

“Let’s go home, okay?” 

As they hop down, Eddie trails after Buck, giving him the space he needs to process. For that, he’s more than thankful, and the very first thing he does when he reaches his locker is pull his ring out from where it’s safely secured in a small container.

“Can I?” Eddie asks quietly from next to him. Buck hands him the box wordlessly, lets him slide it on just like he had three weeks ago.

The sight of Eddie’s hands on his, his ring on Buck’s finger, anchors one of his feet to the ground, stopping him from floating away entirely.

“I’ll wait by the truck. Take your time,” he says, leaning up to press a swift kiss to Buck’s cheek in a rare display of affection at the station, uncaring of the grime stuck to Buck’s skin. 

Buck watches him disappear into the showers, still feeling the weight on his shoulders acutely. It’s only once Eddie’s out of sight that Buck moves, ducking into an empty stall to take a cursory shower.

It was Athena Grant to tell him that taking the uniform off symbolizes letting go of all the inhumane parts of their job. For the most part, like many things, she’s right. But today, it's all Buck can see even as he tugs on a hoodie, his uniform balled and hidden in his bag, not even bothering with a shirt. He can only see that he let someone down today, regardless of how many people he and Eddie might've saved.

He zips the hoodie to his collarbones, tugging the sleeves down his arms, over his wrists so no one can see him shaking. Bobby stops him to ask a few questions, settling a gentle hand on his shoulder. Buck gives as much as he can in answer, patting Bobby’s arm as he moves out to where Eddie’s waiting for him.

As promised, Eddie’s leaning against the driver’s side of his truck, straightening when he sees Buck come out. He’s twirling his matching engagement band around his fingers — a nervous habit, Buck has come to recognize. Buck wants to lean into his body to feel warm again, but he resists as he climbs into the passenger seat.

It doesn’t feel fair to him, that he gets in and out of burning buildings every day, comes out from under a firetruck with all his limbs intact, survives a whole fucking tsunami, and yet, this one accident was enough to take a woman who had so many dreams for herself. Buck still doesn’t know what the fire was caused by, but whatever it is, he can’t stop thinking about Tamara telling him that her family was at a great place, that she was weeks away from finishing her dissertation.

Now she’ll never get to.

All those years of work...for nothing.

The tears don’t come until both of them are standing in the shower together, letting the water beat the tension out of their muscles. Buck wraps a hand around Eddie’s hip, drawing him close. Eddie comes willingly, resting his chin on Buck’s shoulder as they stand there.

“She had so many things she wanted to do,” he starts, voice thick and nose no doubt running. Eddie only wraps his arms around him tighter, holding him as he recounts all the amazing things Tamara had told him about. Her PhD, a new apartment with a working water heater, her little brother about to debut in his first movie, her mom remarrying after twenty years. She would never get to see any of it.

“It was not your fault, Buck,” Eddie says again, voice almost unbearably gentle. One hand moves up to scratch lightly at the back of his head, and Buck goes boneless, breaking into rough sobs that would’ve brought his feet out from under him if Eddie hadn’t been holding him up.

No matter what anyone says, Buck knows this  _ is  _ his fault. She was in his arms, he’d been  _ carrying  _ her. It was a basic carry that even a probie could do and one misplaced step later, he’d dropped her.

“Dropping her is not the same as letting her go.” It’s only then that Buck realizes he’s said it out loud. “The whole floor dropped out from under you. We saw it from outside, saw the building almost move when it happened. And dropping her is not the same as losing your balance. You didn’t drop her, you lost your balance, right?”

Buck pulls away to look at his partner, who looks at him with a peculiar resignation. 

“I love this heart of yours,” Eddie says quietly as he drifts a soapy washcloth across Buck’s chest.

He can’t help but feel like there’s an addendum to that sentence. “But…?”

Eddie leans up to press a soft kiss to his jaw. “There is no ‘but.’ I have loved that heart of yours since I met you, since before I knew that I  _ could  _ have you. You give it so freely to everyone, even people you don’t even know. I love that about you, so much.

“You may not believe it right now, but what happened to Tamara tonight was not your fault, Buck. You did everything you could, but sometimes things aren’t in our hands. We’re only human — there is only so much we can do.”

Buck closes his eyes and lets Eddie take care of him, focusing on the brush of his fingertips against his skin. “I know, I just can’t shake the guilt. I had her, she was right there and then she wasn’t.”

“Did you purposely drop her?” Eddie’s voice is firm this time, and Buck knows this drill, both of them having run it with each other many times over the past few years. He forces himself to open his eyes. 

“No.”

“Did you want the floor to open up under you?”

“No.”

“Were your intentions to bring her safely outside?”

By this third question, the lump in Buck’s throat had grown to the point where he couldn’t force any sound past it. He settles for nodding his answer, another sob escaping him when relief breaks out on Eddie’s face.

He’d gotten through the muddled fog of Buck’s mind. He hadn’t taken all the pain away, but he’d made Buck see reason and for that, Buck steps even closer, tilting Eddie’s chin up to kiss him.

“I love you, a lot,” Eddie whispers against his mouth, the washcloth dropping to the ground as Eddie maneuvers him under the spray. “And no matter what, I have you, Buck. I’ve got your back.”

They’re not just words for them; they never have been. Eddie has proved it over and over that he  _ does  _ have Buck’s back.

Buck gives him a tired smile, this time coming more genuine than before. 

They towel off and curl up together in bed. Buck presses his face into Eddie’s chest, tension seeping through his clothes as Eddie’s fingers curl through his wet hair. The other hand comes up to brush against Buck’s cheek, and that’s when he notices it.

Eddie’s trembling.

He doesn’t know how he hasn’t picked it up yet, but it makes him sit up straight, looking down at his fiancé’s hands.

“Are you hurt somewhere I can’t see?” Buck asks.

“I was just naked with you,” Eddie teases lightly, voice tight enough to contradict the lightheartedness he’s trying to project. “Wouldn’t you have noticed?”

He ignores Eddie's obvious attempt to displace Buck's attention. “Then why are you shaking?”

He can count on one hand the number of times he’s seen Eddie shake. The first time was on the way to pick up Christopher after the earthquake. The second time was when Eddie had finished hooking Buck up to an IV, holding his good hand. The third time was when he was reaching for Christopher’s glasses after the tsunami. 

He doesn’t know what’s made him tremble this time.

“I nearly watched you drop a few stories to try and save Tamara,” Eddie whispers. “Just...the possibility of what would’ve happened if I hadn’t come back scares me. I didn’t listen to Bobby when he tried to pull me back.”

“I didn’t know that.” Buck sits back on his haunches, staring at his fiancé from across their bed. 

“It’s not important right now. I just wanted you to relax, to understand that it’s okay to mourn the people we lose on call, but blaming ourselves for things we can’t control doesn’t get us anywhere. And I know you know it, but sometimes, reminders are good, right?”

Buck’s exact words from ages ago, after a fumble of who could say ‘I love you’ first. 

Buck thinks about that; they’d never quite been dependent on words to communicate how they felt. More often than not, a single look is more than enough to say what they need to. But it’s this very intuition that’s led to them knowing one another as well as they do.

Eddie’s right. Buck would’ve gone straight over if there had been the slightest chance that she was alive. And for a very long moment, Buck had thought there had been.

Now he understands why Eddie had been so reluctant to stop touching him after the fire. The only reason, Buck knows now, that he gave him space was because Buck needed it.

Fuck, he loves this man.

Slowly, he lowers himself back to their original position, this time tangling Eddie’s fingers in his own. 

“It’s a bad day,” Buck says. “But we’ll be okay. With you, I have everything.”

Eddie murmurs that he loves him again, playing with the engagement ring on Buck’s hand.

In the morning, Buck knows that there will be a therapist appointment to make. There will be picking Christopher up from his sleepover to hold him tight. There will be Bobby giving them the next two days off. There will be Buck and Eddie staying closely pressed together, too close of a call to avoid the need for proximity.

But for now, they rest.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact, you actually can't hear things in a fire. Also more fun facts: I actually don't know what this was xD but I hope you enjoyed it!!
> 
> Kudos and Comments make my day, so thank you to everyone who leaves them! I love hearing what you guys think, and anyone who takes time out of their day to comment has my heart and soul ♥
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [zeethebooknerd](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/zeethebooknerd) or on Twitter at [tkreyesevandiaz](https://twitter.com/tkreyesevandiaz).


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